Last modified: Friday, May 21, 2010
IU student volunteers win more free trees from Arbor Day Foundation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2010
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Bloomington campus will be even more green thanks to a group of 75 student volunteers who won $2,500 in free trees for the campus from the Arbor Day Foundation and Toyota.
IU won the Tree Campus USA's Dig In and Make a Difference contest by having the most students participate in a spring tree-planting event sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation. During the Tree Campus USA tree-planting event in Bloomington, held on National Arbor Day (April 30), 75 IU students volunteered their time to plant 53 trees on campus.
The Arbor Day Foundation also held Tree Campus USA tree-planting events this spring at American University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
During the IU Bloomington event, students and volunteers in the community planted trees near the DeVault Alumni Center, located across 17th Street from Memorial Stadium and Assembly Hall. The trees will help increase the campus's tree canopy and will provide shade for students and visitors.
The tree planting took place in an area that has been designated as the 'Woodland Arboretum' in the 2009 IU Bloomington Campus Master Plan, and initiates the implementation process of increasing the campus tree canopy cover from 20 percent to 40 percent over the lifetime of the plan, which is estimated to be 10 years.
Coordination of the tree-planting event was led by Mia Williams, IU landscape architect, and Burney Fischer, clinical professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
IU Bloomington will receive $2,500 in trees from the Arbor Day Foundation and Toyota, sponsor of the 2-year-old Tree Campus USA program, which honors colleges and universities that follow best tree-care practices on their campuses. IU Bloomington was one of 29 schools in the inaugural Tree Campus USA class of 2008. Seventy-four schools, including IU Bloomington, earned Tree Campus USA recognition in 2009.
For more information on the April 30 tree-planting event at IU Bloomington, see https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/14309.html.
